Lewis den Hertog’s images have the sheen of a corporate video. A mother and child on a water chute smile for the camera. A swimmer ploughs in slow motion across a pool. A couple giggle through a facial treatment in a spa. Projected on the back wall of Jen McGinley’s community centre set, they are a blandly reassuring fantasy. Who wouldn’t want to escape to the Big Splash resort?
You can see why local folk think it’s a good idea. In Kieran Hurley’s play, a reworking of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People provocatively thrust into the age of social media, they are banking on this new holiday centre. If they are to reverse the fortunes of their dead-end west-coast town, it is their only hope. It’ll bring tourists and jobs. It might even earn them the title of City of Regeneration. [READ MORE]